Topic: A behind the scenes documentary?

[marvel_moviefan_2012]

I am in the process of starting up a new video production company and I am getting things together for my next video project. Instead of making an actual full on movie, what I plan on doing is a series of micro movies, basically a bunch of snippets of what would be scenes from bigger movies. I am going to do a little bit of everything to get different feels for things. But instead of trying to tie it all together into a single film with a coherent story which is not going to be doable,  I am going to do it in the style of a behind the scenes documentary instead. Mostly this is my way of testing a few ideas to see what I can do, experimental film if you will, and seeing what I am capable of.


My film class project ended up being a total mess. Basically what I did was over the years here and there I would shoot little video shorts like this and edit them into clips that I was going to tie together at some future point. I got side tracked when I took a creative writing class and took time off to tackle suspense novel, that remains unfinished. Then I took a film class and needed a project so I took all my random footage, edited, shot some scenes of a guy watching TV late at night and edited it into a guy watching TV changing the channel as a way to change from one clip to the next. It was you know in a way like Robot Chicken but only more terrible. It sucked but I liked the idea and always wanted to do it again only better.

I would like to do a small, sci-fi short that I did story boards for but never shot anything other than some test footage. I am going to use models because I can't animate or draw to save my life and models are not particularly difficult considering model trains is one of my hobbies. So I will be making it a combination of models and live action, the live action stuff will come latter once I get money for props, costumes, and can build some sets. Anyways in the process of building models I decided to experiment with some other stuff, been watching a lot of behind the scenes making of DVD's lately and getting ideas.

What I am curious is if something like this would be interesting to watch, behind the scenes clips of a movie that never gets made, or a series of random movies that is? I am sure something has been done before probably on Youtube I don't know but I also want to tackle a documentary at the same time so that is where I got the idea.

[marvel_moviefan_2012]

after I read that out loud I realized how lame it actually sounds so canceling this idea.

[ShyGuy]

I used to work at Movie theater back in the 90s and the owner has this idea where he would do movie trailer night. Charge people a couple bucks, have a discount pop and popcorn special, and show a couple hours of the best trailers of all time. He wanted to get some cross promotion going with the local video store, but nothing ever came of it.

[Dan Laser]

Aw, well no need to completely throw out the idea. Sounds like you want to try a bunch of different techniques and story ideas and you want a way of tying them together? You see that all the time in skit shows (Portlandia, Human Giant, Time & Eric, etc etc) and video channels so I'd say it's definitely doable. I would strongly suggest starting small, though.

Initially, it might be good to simply focus on making each individual short and uploading it on its own. See how things go and perhaps you can start making longer episodes and combining the clips down the line. Chances are people will be viewing this online - and they are more likely to watch something short. Think about the audience, their time and how they will be watching.

I don’t think there is really any need to tie them together… Short films are good! Feature length films are expensive and hard to make, even if it is just made up of several shorts. You could always try to go back to the original idea of presenting these shorts as excerpts of feature length films after you have produced them.

You also talk about a short sci-fi you want to make - why not document the behind the scenes, making of the props/models/etc stuff of this film? You can upload them in parts to build up interest and get a following going. That stuff is always cool to see.

If you have some video ideas, experimental films, technical tests, etc - just go and do it! It’s good practice

I'm by no means some video/film expert here but I'll admit that I work at a non profit org that supports local independent filmmakers. Most projects are very small scale... lots of rentals to fellow film students as well as any and all filmmakers/artists.

[marvel_moviefan_2012]

Aw, well no need to completely throw out the idea. Sounds like you want to try a bunch of different techniques and story ideas and you want a way of tying them together? You see that all the time in skit shows (Portlandia, Human Giant, Time & Eric, etc etc) and video channels so I'd say it's definitely doable. I would strongly suggest starting small, though.

Initially, it might be good to simply focus on making each individual short and uploading it on its own. See how things go and perhaps you can start making longer episodes and combining the clips down the line. Chances are people will be viewing this online - and they are more likely to watch something short. Think about the audience, their time and how they will be watching.

I don’t think there is really any need to tie them together… Short films are good! Feature length films are expensive and hard to make, even if it is just made up of several shorts. You could always try to go back to the original idea of presenting these shorts as excerpts of feature length films after you have produced them.

You also talk about a short sci-fi you want to make - why not document the behind the scenes, making of the props/models/etc stuff of this film? You can upload them in parts to build up interest and get a following going. That stuff is always cool to see.

If you have some video ideas, experimental films, technical tests, etc - just go and do it! It’s good practice

I'm by no means some video/film expert here but I'll admit that I work at a non profit org that supports local independent filmmakers. Most projects are very small scale... lots of rentals to fellow film students as well as any and all filmmakers/artists.

What I was thinking was doing behind the scenes of movies that never get made, just to sort of test different ideas. I don't like web videos or piecemeal skits so that is why I wanted to do something like this. My first movie project was the same thing but the premise was a guy watching tv and changing the channel a lot. I might still do it how I envisioned but I am not sure. My first self contained movie short is also on the to do list which is a project that inspired some of this.